The New Religion: Church of the Woo Woos

One of the most disturbing aspects of the von Brunn shooting incidence at the Holocaust Museum is that von Brunn is part of the anti-Fed woo woo movement. Unfortunately the woo woo movement is not restricted to the far right wing. It has now become part of radical leftist conspiracy mythology as well.

We have all heard all the Fed conspiracies by now.

-The Fed’s ultimate goal is to create a New World Order by creating a one government world.

-The Fed was not legitimately enacted.

-The Fed was created and is run by Jewish bankers.

-The Fed charges interest on every dollar added to the money supply otherwise money would be “free”.

-The Fed is the root of all our national debt problems and we would have no debt without it.

-The Fed conspirators started every war since WWI.

The problem is few of these theories are grounded in any truth. The Fed is just an institution that was created to control the money supply and be the lender of last resort when necessary. But the woo woo conspiracy theorist take these absurd notions as fact like people take radical religious views as fact. Anything that counters their believes is not considered at all. Church of Woo Woo hardliners have divine faith in their conspiracies and claim that non-believers just do not accept the truth and are not enlightened. Woo woo believers rarely stray from their founding documents (mostly from internet conspiracy web sites) in their arguments and pray to the almighty movie “Zeitgeist” for their vast orthodoxy of beliefs. Woo woo conspiracy theorists also have there saints like Ron Paul. If these woo woo faithful sound familiar it is because they sound just like religious zealots that close their minds to opposing views.

The worst part of all is woo woo conspirators theories are based on hate that has been passed down for millennium, particularly hate for Jewish people. The Nazi’s and woo woo conspiracy believers share the same basic edicts that Jewish people want to dominate the world. Worse yet they foment this hatred by coming up with more convoluted conspiracy theories like 911 was an inside job and all wars have been the cause of Jewish bankers just to demonize Jewish people even more. Many left leaning woo woo believers minimize this part of woo woo ideology but hatred for Jewish people is the very basis of all the Fed and New World Order conspiracy theories nonetheless.

For practical purposes woo woo believers create problems for people who want real reform with our institutions. There are basic problems with the Fed but they are the same basic problem we have with most of our institutions, namely transparency and accountability. But trying to legitimize these crazy conspiracy theories misdirects bona fide efforts to reform our institutions. The establishment can actually use crazy woo woo conspiracies as a scape goat to prevent real needed reforms.

Woo woo conspiracy theorists tend to dilute efforts to stop real conspiracies from occurring like the conspiracy to go to war with Iraq. Instead of being focused on the fact that the Bush administration was trumping up lies to justify the war, torture and rescinding habeas corpus, many woo woo conspiracy theorists diverted their attention to fighting for the 911 conspiracy theory instead. This was very similar to the way the Bush administration diverted attention from the conflict in the Af-Pak region by starting a new criminal war.

There are people and factors working to control our lives everyday but they are not the insidious organized conspiracies woo woos believe. These controls are institutionalize as wealthy entities have concentrated wealth through exerting influence over government by way of campaign funds and lobbies. The Reagan Revolution of greed is good has much more to do with the economic and institutionalized problems we have today than establishment of the Fed decades ago. Reagan expanded the Military Industrial Complex, created the Prison Industrial Complex with his “War on Drugs” and maximized the Private Healthcare Industrial Complex by demonizing any reforms that including public insurance.

The facts should be obvious because we have seen good times and bad times under the Fed. Bad Fed policy helped lead to the financial crisis not it’s very existence. After FDR and before Reagan we had a vast expansion of wealth in the middle class. The tax cuts and deregulation fever that trickle down Laffer curve Republicans brought us has much more to do with why wealth is being concentrated. Just like the Reagan Revolution took 30 years to exact the final verdict of it as a failed policy it will take years and decades for government to undo the damage that has been made to our real economy.

Woo woo believers are not helping society evolve. Like an group steeped in beliefs over reality they are collaborating with conservatives to devolve the American debate by insisting on a new form of orthodoxy rather than fact based discussion.

The End of the World as We Know It

According to end timers who quote many mythical (religious) references the world is suppose to end 2012. This is one of the reason many right wing end time believers think President Obama is the anti-Christ. It is ironic how we have these same Christians pointing to a pagan Mayan myth saying the world will end in December 21st, 2012 to fortify their crazy predictions as well.

To be fair it seems like every president since Nixon has been dubbed as the anti-Christ thanks to the end timers and Nostradamus effect woo woos. Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) name had the sign of Beelzebub built right into his full name. With a few character gyrations the name “Mabus” from a Nostradamus’ quatrain sighting it as the name of the anti-Christ can be turned into “gwbus”. Of course since progressives are mostly reasonable people very few of them actually “believed” Reagan or Bush were the anti-Christ. However now we are dealing with the party of true believers which are the most frightening people on earth.

Many reasonable people do not get this conspiracy because it is based on irrational religious belief not reason. People don’t understand there is a method to the madness of the right wing by consistently calling President Obama a Muslim, Hitler and born in Kenya. It follows the end time thinking of many true believers based on the Nostradamus quatrains. Hitler is often cited because according to Nostradamus effect believers Hitler was the 2nd anti-Christ Nostradamus foretold. Nostradamus also said the anti-Christ will come from the Mideast so that is why many of these crazies do not let go of the birther and Muslim arguments. It would all me laughable if these people really did not truly have these insane thoughts about our duly elected leader.

“Obama’s first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers’ money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries,” said Frank. “Now, I got to tell you, if a president will do that, there’s almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn’t be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can’t do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.”

Quatrain X 10

“Stained with murder and enumerous adulteries

Great enemy of the entire human race

One who will be worse than his grandfathers, uncles or fathers,

In steel, fire, waters, bloody and inhumane”

Of course thinking like this is irrational and this GOP rep. was probably just talking off the top of his head but it still gives fodder to the right wing wackos to justify any extreme action.

The Real Right Wing Conspiracy

The real right wing political strategy here is to delegitimize President Obama as much as the can to block his agenda. They no longer even try to hide the fact that their only strategy is to bring the president down. The right wing does not want to stop there either. The right wing is formulating a strategy where they really are inciting the military overthrow of the democratically elected government or even not so tacitly promoting the assassination of the president.

Newsmax columnist John Perry wrote Tuesday that President Obama “is inviting” a military coup and that it might not be such a bad thing: “Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars.”

Of course the right wing forgets it was Bush and Cheney that started an illegal war that has so far ended up in the deaths of over 4,000 troops and tens of thousands wounded. But reasonable thought has no place

Is it a conspiracy? Yes of course it is when you have a central strategy that is dolled out as talking points to the right wing echo chamber and activist groups every day to take down the duly elected president. This alone is firm evidence of a conspiracy.

How do you fight insane beliefs? You simply cannot fight people’s belief systems graves are filled with hundreds of millions of bodies around the world because people believed in causes larger than themselves. Beliefs are much stronger than careful consideration and logic. We may a president who is thoughtful and logical but that attribute does not match a major swath of our society. The worse our schools get the more fertile ground there is for beliefs instead of reason so the future may be dimmer than we hope.

We all know the real aim of the vast right wing conspiracy is to maintain the status quo. They want to keep on funneling the wealth of the nation to the top 1% and only use people’s adamant religious beliefs to line their pockets. They want no real healthcare legislation, no renewable energy policy and have come to rely on a poor educational system. Of course on many fronts the minority of conservative Democrats are helping the GOP resist real change. Heaven forbid these religious zealots actually believe in the golden rule and the real teachings of their savior but that is not politically expedient.

No one has the answers when a large minority of the country simply goes insane.

If the world does end in 2012 it will be the GOP that is responsible with their right wing conspiracy to get back power that will end it.

I posted this article as two articles before when many of you folks were not around but I would like to know what some sane folks thought about these conspiracies.

I realize I may be taking a position that isn’t too popular, but I have to say that HuffPo’s headline writers may have struck again with that misleading article on the Catholic Church in D.C. What I was able to gather from the not-too-clearly-written article, was that the Church would feel obliged to sever contracts with the city if the gay marriage issue went through unchanged. But they wouldn’t necessarily abandon their charitable work there.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t support the Church’s position on homosexuality. And this whole situation is a great demonstration of the need for separation of Church and state. Apparently dollars were flowing back and forth between the city and the Church charities and it looks as though both sides now realize that those days are over, if neither side is going to change its position.

My feeling is: so be it. If the Church really does pull out of charitable activities in DC over this, that will speak (negative) volumes. If they stay put and do good works without city money, then we may be able to conclude that they were operating on principles. No matter how misguided those principles may have been.

I think there competing principles involved here, one is feeding the poor and helping the needy and the other is discriminating against gays based on more obscure scripture. Now don’t you think helping the needy would TRUMP even their anti-gay stance based on the fact that Jesus would help the needy straight or gay. It’s all the same right wing politics of extortion if you ask me.

All Christians are suppose to live by the golden rule first. I paraphrase, ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’.

“The bill provides no exemption for individuals with sincerely-held religious beliefs, as required under federal law.
“As a result, religious organizations and individuals are at risk of legal action for refusing to promote and support same-sex marriages in a host of settings where it would compromise their religious beliefs. This includes employee benefits, adoption services and even the use of a church hall for non-wedding events for same-sex married couples. Religious organizations such as Catholic Charities could be denied licenses or certification by the government, denied the right to offer adoption and foster care services, or no longer be able to partner with the city to provide social services for the needy.

I have more than my fair experience with these people, mostly far-left anti-imperialist types. Particularly pernicious in my battles, especially in the direct aftermath of the June 12th Iranian elections, were the “color-revolution” Alex Jones types who strung together even sometimes legitimate information to fit nicely into their prepackaged belief system (damned be the unique domestic situations of the country, all they really care about is taking down the Bilderbergs, etc) that short of anything else, an invasion of Iran is imminent if all our other machinations fail. Though these theories were often reverse-engineered, and fell apart under my scrutiny, this made the woo-woo only more animated in their self-righteous mission, with the oft common refrain of “wake up to THE TRUTH!!!” To be honest, the words are failing me to accurately describe the sense you get from them, but the analogy to a street-corner ‘end is nigh’ zealot is apt. Sometimes I was able to appeal to a hanger’s on sentiments and perform some jujitsu and was successful driving them off. Then other true believers (I liken them to their “supervisors”) would whimper off after similarly being dismantled (and, oh, it was funny that after I’d drive one off, another would come, then another, each complaining of my treatment of the last!), with a lame, okay, you may be right about all that, but still I can’t believe that [insert final central tenet that can’t be abandoned lest cognitive dissonance erupt inside their mind]…

I myself am just amazed at how they come from nowhere in a swarm, and filled with a righteous mission, inured to rational discourse, drone on endlessly. They have all the answers. I wonder if I’ve ever passed any of these people on the street, or if, like everything else on the net, their crazy beliefs find more acceptance in cyberspace. The Internet is both a blessing and a curse in that way (and no, I’m not implying that I wish to restrict their freedoms in believing or disseminating such nonsense).

To fit into the Jewish thing, I myself am sympathetic with the Palestinian’s plight, but on the blogosphere and HP, you find people who not only point out, rightly, that Hamas was democratically elected, but go on to support their philosophy! This is also true with Iran (whose defenders fall partly into one of three main groups, the other being the woo-woo described above, which dovetail, the other being the “drive Israel into the sea” anti-Zionist hyper-partisan). The lesser offenders are so caught up in pointing out failures and faults in US Foreign Policy and corporate media (aka, da jooze) as if this were still novel and liberating to them personally to air such grievances, that in a Manichaeistic, Borderline turn, fall into all of the IRI’s mythology of an upright nation fighting the Arrogant Power and its lies (though they don’t use the exact jargon, they fall into it nonetheless, so much so that they have even unwittingly cited contorted Iranian state-news posted on PrisonPlanet or GlobalResearch.ca). They miss the mental exercise which Chomsky exhorts (though can fall short of himself), imagine you’re a Martian and try to objectively take notes on BOTH sides’ faults. But they don’t, because they can’t get enough of the CIA, George Soros and AIPAC. They’re obsessed. Now, I have my problems with the CIA and the latter especially and am full aware of our history and hegemonic desire for oil, but the conviction of the woo-woos is that these are themselves omnipotent organizations capable of nearly superhuman feats that reeks of the selfsame credulity they smugly accuse us “slumbering masses” of suffering from. One such character also jumped on me for believing in the early migration theories of humans, many still supported by the Human Genome Project, defends the Mongol Horde as misunderstood and warns against getting immunized (and this could bring me to a whole other, $cientologist/neo-hippie woo-woo type, who believes in all things natural and the “evils” of psychiatry). Last time I checked, I was still fanned by this character, as well. (?!) The thing I find disconcerting, is that some of them are well spoken and quite bright. I always marvel at the people whom ‘should know better’ more than the average troll.

One of my fellow comrades, who has the same battle scars against these feral foes, put it quite succinctly:

“The classic Conspiracy ‘Theory’ approach- completely ignore the Iranian people, then be militant about knowing absolutely nothing about what they have to put up with and what they fight for. Then compound that ignorance with delusional jumps of logic of what the US is capable of doing.”

Now, I used my primary personal experiences in the trenches against the woo-woo, but just insert my issue with a handful of others, like the Fed, or 2012 theories (I remember in Junior High there was a similar one, I believe it was 1992?), and you may find similarities.

Wow excellent response. There are organizations that have agendas I don’t agree with and AIPAC and the CIA are great examples. They feed the problems that exist and help form bad policy towards the middle east in particular. However pushing an agenda and trying to control our lives and the world are two different things. I have yet to see a woo woo prove a cause and effect relationship between the so call conspirators actions and the resulting event. Like you said they take the final result and play their logic backwards. Worse the more illogical opponents of groups like AIPAC and the CIA are the less effective they are at gaining any credibility and countering their influence. Mainstream society usually just rights of conspiracy theorists instead of focusing on the real problems that exist.

BTW my pet peeve with the people you are describing is their smug attitudes towards people who don’t buy into their conspiracy theories saying we don’t know the “truth” about basic problems in society. When they are the ones taking the easy way out by outsourcing their beliefs to woo woo group think instead of trying to understand complex systems for themselves.

Read Jeff Sherlot’s book “The Family”, which I recomend if you haven’t read it, it’s about the christian conservative right wing conspiricy that has been going on since the cold war, that has become more entrenched into our lives and government than people realize.

Their prime purpose is to support the few ‘chosen ones’, who are the movers and shakers in big business and politics, the top 1% of our nations wealth, while oppressing us. We, the average citizen, mean nothing to them, other to be a means to their end, which is profit and policy making that benifits them.

Reagan was their Prophet, he was the master of the propaganda machine to get us to fall in line, ie., “Personal Responsibility”.

I believe this group has become more vocal lately, because we now have a center/left President that’s not playing along with them and they, I believe, are panicking and lashing out because of this.

Cheers for the reference. I have been meaning to read it. I don’t see conspiracies in everything but their are conspiracies. Some organized religious movements are simply different forms of conspiracies to change the way people think. That fact is we KNOW about most of the conspiracies that because most are so obvious. Just like a mirror image of the Taliban the religious right wants to make this into a Christian nation. They actually believe it was founded to be a Christian nation based on a couple of semi-sane debates I’ve had with conservatives.

But you got to love the hypocrisy of Christians relying on a pagan Mayan prophecy to point out the exact day of the end times described in Revelations.

BDM, I have, thus far, successfully avoided reading The Family……..in an attempt to avoid the depression that I know I’ll be feeling if I do read it. I am thinking that I am the only lib left who hasn’t read it though…..guess I’ll have to force myself.

These people are just freaking nuts. There is NO other explanation than that something is seriously wrong with them, whether it was caused by nature or nurture.

It is unbelievable to me that a country with over 300 million citizens is held hostage by this minority group, and I sometimes wonder if the US will survive them.

They also bring to mind other fanatics such as suicide bombers, yet they are tolerated in this country, even to the point of allowing them to arm themselves. And make no mistake….it is US they are arming themselves against.

Let me just add this.
When our dog was attacked by a pit bull, every single neighbor asked us why didn’t we just shoot him!
Our neighbors are packing heat, and I kid you not.
They are so proud in whipping out their guns and showing us.
They all say they are packing heat because of the wild life, and yes we do have coyotes, diamondbacks, and mean javelina.
We’ve lived here for 12 years, and that was the first time that something like that happened.
I’ve nothing against gun owners. because we own guns. too. but we don’t carry all the time.
Our guns are for target practice and hunting.
Has anyone ever read Janet Evanovich, by the numbers?
And when Stephanie Plum is in a beauty parlor in New Jersey, and how all the women, including her grandmother whip out their guns?
That’s what we live with!

Oh javez that is so strange and scary for me who has never lived in a country where the citizens were allowed to own guns never mind carry them.

I personally am against guns in any shape or form and feel blessed that I live in a country where I don’t have to worry about gun violence although to be fair, there are cases of mentally disturbed people who rampage with knives and kill people once in a while. That is another pet peeve of mine, the attitude in Japan and most of Asia about mental health issues and the shame families feel about a family member having mental health issues. In Japan many families would rather suffer domestic violence from their children than seek professional help. It is still taboo for many in Asian society and once help is sought and a treatment has begun, the patients are released too soon, most reoffend within a few months.